Butterfly Greetings

Butterflies dance with the colors of the rainbow. A butterfly the color of the sky is an enchanted sight to behold. One the color of musty brown can cause unease, and another the color of a wild orange daylily can nudge a smile out of anyone.

White butterflies, however… those carry with them a peaceful silence, like the one that comes after the first day of snow. They make anyone stop and take in a deep breath as it twirls in spirals before disappearing into the sky. No wonder, it’s because they are the most special out of all their cousins! White butterflies are vessels of loved ones’ souls, after all.

It was not always like this. Centuries ago, those white butterflies were more of a yellowish hue, and they would flutter by unnoticed. It wasn’t until a white rabbit came into a young girl’s life that it all changed.

“Anna, you will never get married.”

“Why are you such a sore to the eye, Anna? Go pull that red mess of a hair into a nicer bun!”

“Is there anything you can do, Anna? How will I marry you off?”

Those were the sighs and grumbles a fifteen-year-old Anna Bennett used to hear from her mother, back in those times when ladies wore long dresses to run errands and all they could hope for was finding a good husband.

“Anna, you won’t leave the house until you play the piano better.”

“No sleep for you until you stop sounding like a dying bird during this song.”

“Anna, your French!”

That last one was an exclamation from Anna’s governess as the red-haired girl ran outside her house, her braided bun coming undone and trailing her like a red arrow pointing her escape. She ran through her family’s modest yet sizeable garden, the wooden bridge atop the river next to town, the cobblestone streets filled with merchants and gossiping neighbors. She ran until her heart gave out and she stopped on a vast green prairie that smelled nothing like the sickening, greasy chicken her cook was making for a potential suitor that was a bit too close in age to her father for her liking.

“I don’t like French!” she yelled with the angriest holler she could muster. “I don’t care about piano! And I do not want to get married to that old man!”

Silence.

She breathed in and out, gazing at the serene sight in front of her. The grass gently swayed to the breeze, like the damsel in distress her mother and every woman in town wanted to be. She did not roll her eyes at the girls who dropped handkerchiefs -she just did not want to be like them. But she would have to someday.

Tears stung her eyes like bees. She always hated crying, but she could not help it. She was growing up, close to the age her mother promised herself to marry all her girls off, and she did not like it. She missed being a little girl.

Anna heard herself sob and clasped her mouth, wide-eyed. “No, don’t be like this,” she told herself, wiping her tears from her freckled cheeks before cleaning her hands on her skirt. And that’s when she saw a white bunny, hopping carefully towards her.

Anna stared in disbelief. When she was younger, all the bunnies would run away, hopping into the freedom she always wished to have. This one stopped at her skirt, its pink nose moving like a rapidly beating heart.

And that was that.

She took the rabbit home and named him (or her, she never found out) Prairie. Anna was not the most unique with names. She made a deal with her mother to focus on her French and be attentive during dinner parties if she could only keep Prairie around. Anna thought her mother only agreed because she believed Prairie would escape or die soon.

Her mother's wishes did not happen. It was as if the greens her parents’ maids would give her were magic. Anna would laugh at how Prairie’s whiskers trembled when she ate the leaves. She laughed joyously with Prairie when the old man felt Anna looked too young for a fifteen-year-old and opted not to court her. They giggled together as Prairie ate her greens when, a year later, Anna found herself blushing at the new neighbor’s oldest son. They cackled in celebration when she learned enough French to stop the lessons the year after. Prairie managed to make eighteen-year-old Anna smile when her mother suddenly died and she found herself crying for a woman she never knew she loved that much. They nervously chuckled before Anna’s first real social event (she’d gone to many before but never taken them as seriously as that day). Prairie and Anna surrendered a smile as the now woman packed her items after getting married at twenty in honor of her mother’s wishes. And then, at twenty-one, when Anna’s marriage was exactly what she feared when she was fifteen, there was Prairie, still making her laugh.

At twenty-two, when Anna started getting along with her husband just a tad bit better and she finally got pregnant, Prairie was not there to share the fear and excitement. She’d left that year.

Anna would still catch herself going into the kitchen out of habit for greens. She’d sit down with crumpled lettuce and other leaves in her weak hands, fighting against the tears stinging like bees.

“It’s so lonely now,” she once whispered out the window, her hand on her growing belly.

Her husband was off on his business travels. No neighbors were available to visit. And, in her condition, her older sisters would’ve killed her if they’d found out from one of the house staff members that she was out and about.

And then, it happened: a white butterfly fluttered to the windowpane and sat there. Anna had never seen a butterfly that would not fly away from her at the first sign of movement.

A little tingle of suspicion -hope -that it was Prairie woke up in her heart. But she was too old to believe that.

Or was she?

The next day, the butterfly came again. This time, Anna had greens in her, and she watched as the butterfly settled on top of the small pieces of lettuce. This would happen every day by the open window, and everyday Anna had to fight the urge to believe it was Prairie.

Then one afternoon, her husband returned early from his business trip. He caught her staring at the butterfly on the windowpane. It flew away as soon as the man stepped into the room, just like Prairie would.

Anna looked down at her gigantic belly, ashamed, unprepared to answer his questioning.

She could only gaze at him as he walked near the window, shockingly silent. He stuck his head out, the rays of sun catching the streaks of gold in his brown hair. He nodded at the mound of lettuce, as if he understood.

“I was on one of my travels when a very wrinkled lady came to me,” he said, now leaning against the window. “I thought she was a beggar… she jumped out of a dark alley. She claimed she had dreams, messages from Heaven. She only grabbed my hand and told me that the person I loved missed someone dearly.”

Anna blushed. It was the first time her husband alluded to loving her, and it was also the first time he acknowledged her closeness to Prairie.

“She told me to let this person know that the soul she yearns for has found a way to come and greet her,” he continued, engaging in an eye contact rare for the couple. “And that this bond opened the doors for other souls to visit their loved ones in the same form. I thought she was sick and I just walked away. But maybe, if her tale were true, that form could be a butterfly. They fly, after all, and who knows how high they can go. Maybe even up to Heaven?”

“Maybe,” Anna said, looking out the window, enjoying the sights of the golden hour. She could not wait to greet Prairie the next day.